Chapter 1: Past and present life (This chapter is free)

When he recovered his consciousness, Zhang Ke tried his best to restore his memory from the car accident, but found that it seemed as if the fragments remaining after the distortion of time and space were left, and the memory did not look touchable and real.

Only then did Zhang Ke slowly wake up, his eyes covered with a layer of gray gloom, and the pale yellow ceiling was a little mottled, unlike the hospital ward. This color was very familiar. Before he moved out of the municipal government's courtyard, the ceiling was this color. At that time, my father was the deputy secretary-general of the municipal government, and my mother was an ordinary cadre of the municipal petition bureau. He was still a good student...

Someone was talking quietly next to him.

"Mayor Tang means you want to go out and avoid..." With just this, I fell into silence and couldn't hear the few people standing beside me.

Zhang Ke has a strong sense of familiarity with the content and tone of this sentence: someone must have said the same thing in this tone at some place or at some point.

I couldn't feel any pain in my body, but there was a huge pain on the back of my head as if I had broken it apart. It was so painful that I didn't have the strength to turn my head and see who was standing next to me. Zhang Ke was also familiar with this feeling of headache. Zhang Ke remembered that he had a high fever during the summer vacation when he graduated from junior high school. His head was as painful as it is now, and he was hit by someone with a wooden wedge into the back of his head.

At that time, when Tang Xueqian, executive vice mayor of Haizhou City, was falsely accused of being imprisoned in 1994, his father was greatly implicated as the person who was promoted by Tang Xueqian. At that time, the family was panicked and no one was thinking about sending him to the hospital.

It was this familiar headache that made Zhang Ke suspected that he had a high fever again, rather than a car accident.

"Think about Mayor Tang's words..." The man said another sentence, and then he heard someone push the door and walk out, but he didn't walk in again. The door was closed outside.

Hearing this person mentioning the title of "Mayor Tang", Zhang Ke thought to himself: Who is this Mayor Tang? He only recognizes Tang Xueqian, the mayor surnamed Tang. However, Tang Xueqian was falsely accused of accepting bribes in 1994 and was acquitted in 1999. At that time, he was in a bad state. After several years of recuperation, he could not return to his leadership position. Now he is just a bad old man. Who else is the mayor surnamed Tang?

When I think of Tang Xueqian, I have to think of my father’s ups and downs over the past decade.

After graduating from graduate school in the early 1980s, his father returned to work at Haizhou Normal University. Later, Tang Xueqian, the dean of Haizhou Normal University, was transferred to the city as deputy mayor. His father followed him to the city and served as deputy director of the second secretary-general of the Municipal Government Office. He stayed in the city for five or six years. Tang Xueqian served as executive vice mayor, and his father gradually climbed to the position of deputy secretary-general of the municipal government. By 1994, Tang Xueqian was suspected of accepting bribes because he was in charge of the reform of Xinfeng Group. The province sent an inspection team to investigate. When Tang Xueqian was under quarantine and was subject to the quarantine review, he asked his father to take a message outside and let him avoid it. His father lent the opportunity to hold a funeral to his uncle. Soon after, the provincial inspection team obtained key evidence of Tang Xueqian's bribery. What's strange is that at this time, there were rumors outside that his father provided clues to let the inspection team find Tang Xueqian's handle.

After Tang Xueqian was imprisoned, his father was removed from his public office and returned to Haizhou University to teach. At this time, Haizhou Normal University had merged with several other colleges to become Haizhou University.

It was not until 1999 that Ding Xiangshan, secretary of the Haizhou Municipal Party Committee, was arrested for accepting bribes, and the court changed his rebellion against Tang Xueqian. Only then did people know that Ding Xiangshan was accused of the bribes in 1994. As for why the secretary of the municipal party committee wanted to accused the deputy mayor with a lower position than him? The judgment given by the court was vague, which gave people a lot of room for imagination. Some said that Ding Xiangshan and Tang Xueqian competed for a woman named Xu Si, some said that Tang Xueqian had long mastered Ding Xiangshan's bribes.

The evidence was that he wanted to take the opportunity to overthrow Ding Xiangshan, but he asked Ding Xiangshan to take action first. As for the truth, no conclusion seemed to be drawn, but after Tang Xueqian was released from prison, he was in poor spirits and could not remember asking someone to tell his father that year. People recalled the situation and rumors that his father left Haizhou when Tang Xueqian was under investigation. In their opinion, in addition to betrayal, there was also the suspicion of framing Tang Xueqian with Ding Xiangshan.

The court did not make clear statements for my father. My father had no place to gain a foothold at Haizhou University. With the help of his former colleagues, he was transferred to Haizhou Chess Academy as a guard to fool his life. His father's intelligence for life was mistaken for the person who was in the conversation. He could not turn over for the rest of his life and felt depressed. He was less than fifty years old and had white hair.

As my father rose and fell, the fate of the family also suffered quite ups and downs. After my father left the city, my mother was quickly transferred from the Municipal Bureau of Letters and Calls. The company transferred was not good, and she was suspended in 1998. The family was once very financially difficult. It was not until Zhang Ke graduated from university and became the department manager of Haizhou Longyu Group and then the manager of the branch that the family's economic situation improved.

When is it today? Zhang Ke remembered that it was April 28 when he had a car accident. On April 28, 2008, on the way out of the community gate to the bus stop, he was hit by a small car that suddenly broke out. People lost consciousness in the air and felt unconscious for a long time. There were probably some in three or four days, and maybe the May Day holiday had passed.

Although the severe headache was lingering, Zhang Ke thought to himself that he could live, and fell asleep again in a daze...

"The fever has not subsided..." A cold hand was pressed on his forehead. Zhang Ke opened his eyes and saw a familiar and unfamiliar face. He said that he had been familiar with this face for thirty years, and said that he was unfamiliar because this face could never be so young. He looked almost ten years ago. At that time, his father Zhang Zhixing was also the deputy secretary-general of the municipal government. As an ordinary cadre of the Municipal Bureau of Letters and Calls, Liang Gezhen, even though he had crow's feet at the corners of his eyes, he looked much younger than women of the same age.

Zhang Ke took a look again in confusion. Even though the wrinkles on his forehead disappeared, the lines at the corners of his eyes became lighter, and the skin was filled with water and returned to elasticity, the person in front of him was indeed his mother Liang Gezhen, but... why did his mother become younger?

...Zhang Ke looked at his mother who was over 10 years younger and suddenly remembered that he was lying at home fourteen years ago because of high fever, even if he fell asleep, his head was so painful that it was about to crack?

Dreaming!

Zhang Ke closed his eyes and let the severe headache wedged into the back of his head swallow his consciousness. Even if he woke up and broke his arms and legs, it was better than not being able to wake up.

I don’t know how long it took to fall into a coma. When Zhang Ke woke up again, he opened his eyes and saw his mother sitting in front of the bed, with concern on his face; his left arm was wrapped around the silicone tube for infusion, and the severe headache subsided. He stretched out his hands and feet, feeling a little weak and weak, and he didn’t feel that his arms were broken and his legs were missing...

I'm still dreaming, repeating the scene fourteen years ago...

Seeing that his son Zhang Ke woke up, the worry on his face faded a little. He reached over and touched his forehead, and then put it on his forehead. He felt the difference in body temperature: "The fever has subsided, Zhixing, Xiao Ke's fever has subsided..."

Zhang Ke was full of doubts, but the feeling of being pressed by his mother's slightly cold palm on his forehead was really a feeling of being alive. His father pushed the door from the outer room, wearing a snow-white stand-up collar short-sleeved shirt, his eyes were deep in, his hair was messy, and his beard had not been shaved for several days. It was the image of his father when the province sent the inspection team to come down due to Tang Xueqian's bribery problem.

Or in a dream?

Zhang Ke remembered the voice he heard when he woke up. The person was Ye Xinming, the full-time secretary before Tang Xueqian was placed under double supervision. If this dream was repeated fourteen years ago, Ye Xinming should have deceived his father to leave Haizhou under the name of Tang Xueqian.

The dream repeats the experience of fourteen years ago. It’s really sad to think about it. My father left Haizhou, Tang Xueqian was imprisoned after taking bribes, and rumors spread. My father became a betrayer who framed Tang Xueqian and was imprisoned. The fate of the family was about to undergo an astonishing reversal. The world around him suddenly became cold and cruel. After experiencing the pain caused by the first setback in his life, Zhang Ke became cynical. Before he was sixteen, Zhang Ke, in his own words, was a pure boy who had no sexual experience with both hands.

A doctor in a white coat came in with his father. Zhang Ke only remembered that the man's surname was Lu. Dr. Lu reached out and touched Zhang Ke's forehead and said affirmatively: "The fever has subsided. I'll take the medicine on time. I'll come again tomorrow. There is no problem, there will be no problem..."

Zhang Ke's eyes fell on his hands and his body under the sheet. It was indeed different from his thirty-year-old hands, and his body was also the thin appearance he was when he was a teenager.

Since it is a dream, why is it so real? Maybe it might be like going back fourteen years ago.

Zhang Ke watched his parents standing in front of him, and he really didn't know what to say. The patient always had a reason not to speak.

After sleeping in a daze, even if it felt so real, Zhang Kening believed that this was a dream. The injustice fourteen years ago was a nightmare for Tang Xueqian and Zhang Ke's family. Who would have hoped to do it again?
Chapter completed!